for "

daily bread" alone! In what are such men better than the captives starved, beaten, and chained, in the mines of their Greek and Roman conquerors? For, remember Carlyle's words: "Thy body, like thy soul, was not to know freedom."

Pass through a cotton mill, and ask the same question. Go out into the country where the farmer is bending over the plough, and ask the question again. In what do all these multitudes who are condemned by the inexorable laws of life to manual toil, in what do they differ from the slaves of ancient Babylon, if all their toil, their sweat, their anguish, is merely for "daily bread" for themselves and for their masters ? Many of them have already forgotten that they differ at all, and many more are tending to forget their real and ancient dignity to cherish a sentimental and selfish philanthropy. The consoling dictum born of Christianity, and according to the mind of her great Founder-laborare est orare-to work is to pray, a dictum which has in times past soothed so many sorrows and raised up such mighty heroes, has become for many, "to work is to gain money," "to work is to gain one's daily bread." What "ignoble drudgery"! What building upon sand! What casting of pearls before swine! Yet this is what Materialism offers to Labour; this is how it will solve the Labour Question.

What a contrast is all this to the Christian ideal! The Founder of Christianity Himself has sanctified Labour upon this earth, and by His example has proved its origin and its nature to be "heaven-born," and "taught of the gods" in very truth. And surely it was not His least legacy to the world to inspire the toil He found "ignoble drudgery," with a higher motive than the needs of the physical organism, to proclaim the spiritual worth of all honest work, as a "divinely appointed ordinance," nay, to place it upon a level with the highest exercise of devotion-laborare est orare-and thus to ennoble in a supreme degree the lives of the humblest toilers. All this Christianity purposed to do, and all this it has doneChristianity which men of name and intellect would fain crush under the leaden weight of Materialism. Well does Mr. Lilly say, that "those companies of religious men, following the rule of St. Benedict, who cleared forests, drained the morasses, reclaimed the desolate places of Germany, France, Spain, England, were doing a work of which they little dreamed."

"We

owe the agricultural restoration of a great part of Europe to the monks," writes Mr. Hallam. "Yes, and we owe to them what is of far more importance-that sentiment of the dignity of Labour without which the mere legal emancipation of the labourer would have been of little worth." In this ennobling of Labour, springing from the "vindication of a man's right to be himself, to live out his own life," lies the true explanation of the greatness and dignity of man, and of the surpassing worth and dignity of life. As we conclude these few crude thoughts, so obvious, so important to remember in these days, and yet so forgotten by those whom they most deeply concern, our mind goes back to that continual tragedy enacted some half century ago, for tragedy it was in all truth,-the slavish employment of young children in mines and factories. Terrible indeed would it be to re-enact the scenes that caused Elizabeth Browning in her "Cry of the Children," to say :

Now, tell the poor young children, oh, my brothers!
To look up to Him and pray-

So the Blessed One, who blesseth all the others,

Will bless them another day.

They answer, "Who is God, that He should hear us,
While the rushing of the iron wheels is stirred ?
When we sob aloud, the human creatures near us

Pass by, hearing not, or answer not a word!
And we hear not (for the wheels in their resounding)
Strangers speaking at the door :

Is it likely God, with angels singing round Him,
Hears our weeping any more?"

And well may the children weep before you ;

They are weary ere they run;

They have never seen the sunshine, nor the glory
Which is brighter than the sun :

They know the grief of man but not the wisdom;
They sink in man's despair, without its calm,
Are slaves, without the liberty in Christdom-

Are martyrs, by the pang without the palm-
Are worn as if with age, yet unretrieving
No dear remembrance keep-

Are orphans of the earthly love and heavenly;
Let them weep! Let them weep!

And such a helpless cry Materialism will draw from the

hearts of its grown children in angry earnest when, forgetful of their Maker and unsolaced by thoughts of their true dignity -the prayer of Labour-they labour merely for "daily bread," the bread which perishes.

W. P. S.

NOTES ON NEW BOOKS

1. Theory and Practice of the Confessional: a Guide in the Administration of the Sacrament of Penance. New York, Chicago, Cincinnati Benziger Brothers. (Price 14s.)

As this very stately volume of 700 royal octavo pages is addressed only to the clergy, and cannot therefore be discussed here, we atone partly for the inadequacy of our notice by putting it in front, and supplying at once a very important part of the title page which we omitted. The author of this work is Dr. Gaspar Shieler, Professor of Moral Theology in the Diocesan Seminary of Mayence. The editor of the English translation is the Rev. H. J. Heuser, D.D., Professor of Theology in Overbrook Seminary, Pennsylvania. Dr. Mesmer, Archbishop of Milwaukee, recommends the book earnestly by a brief introduction. The typography is excellent. Dr. Heuser has made a very useful addition to a priest's library.

2. St. John Baptist de Rossi. Translated from the Italian by Lady Herbert. London: Burns & Oats. (Price 5s. net.)

This fine, portly, and admirably printed volume appeared first in 1883. The introduction prefixed to it by Cardinal Vaughan on Ecclesiastical Training and Sacerdotal Life is the finest piece of work that we have seen from the pen of the successor of the illustrious Cardinals, Wiseman and Manning. This alone is worth the extremely moderate price set upon this stately octavo. The book itself is most edifying and interesting, being the biography, as Cardinal Vaughan notes, of the first simple secular priest of modern times who has been canonized.

It will be a valuable addition, we hope, to many a priest's library at this gift-giving season of Christmastide.

3. Catholic London a Century Ago. By Bernard Ward, Canon of Westminster. London: Catholic Truth Society, 69 Southwark Bridge Road, S.E. (Price 2s. 6d. net.)

This work must be of very great interest for London Catholics, seeing that one who hopes never to set foot in that vastly overgrown and unwieldy metropolis has read it with keen pleasure. Canon Ward has collated with pious industry all particulars concerning the Catholic churches and chapels óf a hundred years ago, the bishops, priests, and people of that time; and the narrative is illustrated by thirty-three pictures of the persons and places mentioned, including the interior and exterior of the churches and chapels, most of which have now passed away like the worshippers that frequented them. It is consoling to be reminded of the courage and fidelity of the Catholics of those times. Half-a-crown can never repay the outlay on this volume, no matter how large an edition may be sold.

4. Other recent publications of the same indefatigable Society are Sermons and Essays by Cardinal Newman. For one shilling we get in good binding and with excellent printing that most exquisite, perhaps, of all his sermons, "The Sacred Spring," and also "Christ upon the Waters," the two chief sermons about the Blessed Virgin, and three other discourses showing the analogy between the mysteries of nature and grace, and that the religious and social condition of Catholic countries is no prejudice to the sanctity of the Church. An extremely neat little sixpenny book contains De Torrente: Devotional Papers by Father Cuthbert, O.S.F.C. Coming down to the popular penny we have Lady Amabel Kerr's Life of St. Patrick, Socialism by Charles S. Devas, M.A., English Catholics and Foreign Missions by the Rev. Thomas Jackson, The Catholic Attitude on the Education Question by the Archbishop of Westminster, A Blind Priest: Gaston de Ségur by E. M. Willson, What about Hypnotism? by the Rev. H. G. Hughes, The Fiftytwo Sundays, The Rights of Minorities by the Rev. Joseph Rickaby, S.J., and Ad Matrem (simple but dignified verses by the Rev. John Gray, describing secnes in the life of our Blessed Lady). Nos. 5 and 6 are added to the series of VOL. XXXIV.-No. 391.

D

Thoughts in Prose and Verse. The compiler's name is not given. Very great skill and care, guided by a refined taste and wide. literary erudition, have been expended on the editing of these tiny anthologies.

5. Messrs. Benziger Brothers, New York, Chicago, and Cincinnati, are by far the most generous providers of Catholic stories for the young folk of the English-speaking races. Their latest additions to the store of wholesome fiction are two fine six-shilling volumes, A Double Knot and other Stories, Where the Road Led and other Stories. Nine writers appear in both-among them M. F. Egan and Jerome Harte, who are the only men admitted-and ten appear in one volume only. Nay, Mary Waggaman contributes five to each volume, Anna Sadlier and Miss Magdalen Rock four, and some others three or two to each of them. Very many of these consist of half a dozen pages, and it has sometimes a slightly grotesque effect to condense a plot within such narrow limits. Clara Mulholland's " Annunciata " has a better chance in its seventeen pages. Somewhat on the principle of setting a thief to catch a thief, Father Copus, S.J., himself an expert story teller, has been employed to criticise these volumes in Catholic Book News. We agree with his partiality for Mrs. Waggaman's "Inexact Science," and with his high estimate of the whole series. Two of the best are by one who will write no more, the late Eugenie Uhlrich. There is a very delicate pathos in the slight sketch, "Grandmamma," to which one is attracted by the name of the writer, Mary Boyle O'Reilly.

6. Wayward Winifred. By Anna T. Sadlier. New York: Benziger. (Price 6s.)

The scene of this story changes from Ireland to the United States. We suspect that the Irish scenes will seem more natural to American readers and the American scenes more natural to Irish readers. The story opens at the Dargle. We do not relish tales that make our Irish peasantry fanatical believers in fairies and superstitions of all kinds, picturesque but silly. We have never met such persons ourselves. But this story was not written to suit the taste of an old fogey; and its youthful readers will enjoy vivid descriptions, lively conversations, and plenty of striking incidents all winding up happily.